In an ideal world you're right. But most people don't create projects expecting -- or even wanting -- huge success.
1. Sometimes people create a project for themselves but use Github as a convenient place to store the code. I've done that before and found people filing issues against those projects.
2. Sometimes people create a project to scratch a personal itch and put it online in case it helps anyone else. Not in the sense of hoping people will use it but rather than in the "I bought 10 bottles of wine and only drank 9. Help yourselves to the last bottle" sense.
Maybe there should be (maybe there already is) a software license that should better explain the "wrote this for myself. You're free to use it but don't expect support".
3. Some people probably do hope that their project has some, maybe even just small, degree of success but they host in their own user profile because their Github profile is their CV and they're starting new projects in the hope of landing better jobs.
This 3rd group are a particular problem for open source. Not in the sense that they're doing anything wrong -- they're clearly not. But in the sense that you end up with a lot of NIH since the primary reason for a project existing is to boost the CV. So when the primary maintainer moves on, any future contributors will prefer to build their own solution rather for their own CV rather than taking over maintenance of the existing project.
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It should also be noted that not all projects are large enough to warrant their own Github org. Take BurntSushi's stuff. I'd wager the percentage of HN developers who use BurntSushi's code is in the double figures. But there'd be no sense in every one of his projects being it's own org.
> Maybe there should be (maybe there already is) a software license that should better explain the "wrote this for myself. You're free to use it but don't expect support".
Pragmatically I think you're right that developers should put that but it feels like such a hostile comment to make that I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable publishing it.
There's probably a better way of phrasing it than I had though -- a way that is less standoffish.
1. Sometimes people create a project for themselves but use Github as a convenient place to store the code. I've done that before and found people filing issues against those projects.
2. Sometimes people create a project to scratch a personal itch and put it online in case it helps anyone else. Not in the sense of hoping people will use it but rather than in the "I bought 10 bottles of wine and only drank 9. Help yourselves to the last bottle" sense.
Maybe there should be (maybe there already is) a software license that should better explain the "wrote this for myself. You're free to use it but don't expect support".
3. Some people probably do hope that their project has some, maybe even just small, degree of success but they host in their own user profile because their Github profile is their CV and they're starting new projects in the hope of landing better jobs.
This 3rd group are a particular problem for open source. Not in the sense that they're doing anything wrong -- they're clearly not. But in the sense that you end up with a lot of NIH since the primary reason for a project existing is to boost the CV. So when the primary maintainer moves on, any future contributors will prefer to build their own solution rather for their own CV rather than taking over maintenance of the existing project.
---
It should also be noted that not all projects are large enough to warrant their own Github org. Take BurntSushi's stuff. I'd wager the percentage of HN developers who use BurntSushi's code is in the double figures. But there'd be no sense in every one of his projects being it's own org.